The sound freezes Martin in place, causes a sharp and cold pain in his gut. The shape in his grip writhes again, practically freed until the boy's hand finds its strength again to grab and yank. Pushing through the growing mess and mass of rank bodies, faster and more desperate and aware with each move, Martin begins to scramble, tucking his shoulders up against the feeling of the very thing he was doing. Everything he did and saw was absolutely wrong, and Chloe was stuck in the middle of all of it.

"Chl—" He sucked in against the sound as he felt something across his belly. The danger of it snapped him out of his stupor at last, and he writhed, wrestling himself free. His momentum dropped him to his knees with a heavy thud beside her, bound. His eyes raced from her to the things on her legs very quickly.

"No!"

He stretched his arm out, palming the rotten face attached to those arms, and loosed the lance. It split the head, sailed off as far as it could go in that place, through whatever was in the way, until it was dust. Martin had already forgotten about it. The force had blown him back against those things crowding behind him, and he had to wrestle again to get free.